794794 · Kyoto

Founding of Heian-kyō (Kyoto)

Heian Jingū's green-roofed hall in Kyoto, a scaled copy of the Heian palace's great hall, across a gravel court — Photo: KENPEI. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In 794 Emperor Kanmu moved the court to Heian-kyō, a new capital laid out on a grid modelled on the Chinese capital Chang'an. It remained the emperor's city for more than a thousand years, until the move to Tokyo in 1869. Its court produced The Tale of Genji and much of Japan's classical culture, and its street grid still shapes central Kyoto.

Royalty & Monarchy
Architecture & Urban History
Literary History
Kyoto, Japan

Sites

Site 1: Kyoto Imperial Palace (Kyoto Gosho)Rebuilt palace halls on the site emperors used from 1331 to 1869.Map ↗
Site 2: Heian JingūShrine of 1895 copying, at reduced scale, the original palace's great hall.Map ↗
Site 3: Tō-jiTemple founded beside the city's south gate in 796, with Japan's tallest wooden pagoda.Map ↗